I personally love the Archos players. They're a bit more expensive than an iPod, but they can do a lot more.

1. They have bigger screens.
2. Better battery life.
3. You can add more video and audio codecs with a plugin-like system.
4. 2 or 3 of the models have wifi.
5. Most of the models can do DVR functions if you but the DVR dock.
6. USB Host mode.
7. PDA-like functions.
8. Works perfectly with any OS.